The Con Man

Chapter Twenty

Ethan made his way towards Belle's penthouse to talk to her. He had gotten the message from George five days ago but he had told him to wait for a few days. Today George had told Martha, Isabelle's mother, about the engagement. He had told her that Ethan had come to him asking for blessing to marry Isabelle. So now Ethan was on his way to meet Belle. He had just finished video calling Mike and told him everything and even though Mike was against it at first, he finally agreed with Ethan.

Ethan should have been happy that she had agreed but somehow he had a bad feeling about this. He knew how Belle felt about Alex. He just needed to clear the air to why she agreed. He parked his car and made his way to the lobby where he was stopped by the guards.

"May I know your name sir and the person you are here to meet?"

"I am Ethan Wright and please tell Ms. Isabelle Hawking that I am here to meet her"

The guard called up Belle and after a minute Ethan was guided towards the elevator. He reached her floor and saw that Belle was waiting by the open door.

"Hey Belle"

"Hello Ethan"

The greeting was followed by an awkward silence and Ethan cleared his throat.

"Please come in." Belle said as she waved Ethan inside.

"Look Belle, I know how you feel about Alex..." Ethan got straight to the point but was cut off by Belle.

"Yet you still decided to go ahead with this marriage?" Belle shot at him. "You didn't even mention it to me once that this was the reason you were here."

"But you have said yes to this Belle. Is Alexander okay with this?" Ethan asked

"That does not concern you Ethan. We are marrying for the sake of the business so let it be that way. Do not bring anything else in to it, please."

Ethan looked at Belle and saw that she looked paler than usual and had dark circles.

"But Alex..." Ethan started.

"We broke up. It was not working out. So now can we focus on our marriage? I do not ever want to discuss the past."

"Okay." Ethan let it go. He was getting himself more involved then he needed to be and he planned to stick to the main plan as Belle seemed like she was more than okay with this setting.

Belle's phone rang and she groaned looking at the caller ID.

"C'mon Ethan, we have to go meet mom. Dad has told her about our wedding and she is going mad because I never even hinted at something of this magnitude to her."

"You are making our marriage sound like a natural disaster" Ethan muttered.

"That's what it exactly is." Belle replied back and went to grab her handbag and car keys.

"We cannot drive there separately" Ethan said eyeing her car keys.

"Of course, I forgot."

"We also have to get the ring."

"Huh?" Belle looked at him with a confused look on her face.

"Engagement ring, we are engaged so we need one."

Belle took a deep breath to calm her down. It had been almost a week now since that accident and she didn't even know how Alex was. She didn't get any message from him. She cried herself to sleep every night. Even right now standing in front of Ethan like nothing was wrong was killing her, this marriage was killing her but she needed to do this. She couldn't let her heart steer her again because the last time she did, it had led to a deadly crash. So from now onward her brain was the driver of her life decisions and the heart was locked in the trunk of her life car.